


If I loved you less

by aristos_philtatos



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Pining, Pining Roger, That's it, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 13:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aristos_philtatos/pseuds/aristos_philtatos
Summary: Never had he understood the appeal of silence and solitude, he was a party animal, a people person, he needed attention and laughter all around to survive; yet, with the unbearable tightness he felt inside, he finally got was Brian was always talking about, with his stars and his penchant for long nights alone, with the nose up to the sky.Or pining Roger, and poetic wannabe descriptions of the summer





	If I loved you less

The wind was lazily blowing, bringing a barely there chill that eased a bit of the unbreathable hotness of the day.   
The night wasn’t quiet, but in the calm of the countryside, the only sounds came from the nature all around, and the gentle chirping of the crickets, the distant hooting of a lonely owl, gave a sense of peace that could calm even the most intrepid of the hearts.   
And Roger, leaning over the balcony of his family home, finally felt his tormented soul rest. 

Days were long and hot; the town, despite being far from London, buzzed with life under the scorching august sun, happy and busy: everybody seemed light despite the weight of the summer air, and the weight in Roger’s heart.    
Seeing all that carefree joy all around him only served as a reminder of how far, physically and emotionally, he was from that elated feeling. 

But after dusk, when the sun went down and everybody was asleep, when everything had turned blue and the stars shone like candles in the sky, he finally found the shelter he was looking for when he decided to come home for the summer. 

Never had he understood the appeal of silence and solitude, he was a party animal, a people person, he needed attention and laughter all around to survive; yet, with the unbearable tightness he felt inside, he finally got was Brian was always talking about, with his stars and his penchant for long nights alone, with the nose up to the sky. 

 _Brian._  

It was ironic, how he came all the way here to take a break from the curly haired man, only to find himself tortured with thoughts about him, going as far as basically imitating his introverted nature: he wanted to be alone, these days, maybe because he couldn’t be with the only person who understood him. 

Or used to. Because now, these illegitimate feelings had taken hold of his heart like a parasite, creating a distance between him and the man he wanted to be as close as humanly possible to.   
And now he was alone, he had no one to talk to, was alone with his useless mind and treacherous heart, who kept replaying all the memories who made him ache all over. 

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. 

When he looks again, he’s met with the sight of those beautiful stars. 

 _“Look, that’s Cassiopeia”_  

 _Brian pointed at a vague part of the sky._    
_Roger wasn’t even looking, too caught up with the reflection of the stars in Brian’s wide, gleeful eyes._  

 _“That one?” he asked, glancing up briefly._    
_The taller man got behind him, and took his arm to help him point it out. Roger felt his heart speed up._  

 _“That one” he made a zig zag motion with Roger’s hand. “Do you see it?”_  

 _He nodded, only focused on_ _Brian’s_ _soft voice against his ear._  

 _“And that one” he continued, moving them further right “is Scorpius”._    
_He moved their joint arms in a long, almost circular motion._  

 _“Aren’t they beautiful?”_    
_Brian’s smile turned to face him, so blinding he felt his heart tug painfully in his chest._  

 _“Yeah” you are._  

Exactly the kind of memories he was trying to escape. 

Thing is, Roger is a fairly confident person.   
He’s known for being able to charm someone’s pants off in minutes.   
He’s had girls, sometimes even boys, throw themselves at him without even talking to them. 

Ever since the band had become fairly popular around universities, he was able to sleep with someone different every night.   
He had even dated a girl for a few months, just to prove to his mates that he was capable of a committed relationship. 

Yet, a poodle-looking awkwardly tall astrophysics student, a complete nerd at that, had managed to render him speechless times and times again.   
He couldn’t flirt with him, not only because he was his best friend and band mate, but also because he found himself literally uncapable of it, could barely talk around the frantic beating of his heart, lost his breath every time Brian so much as looked at him. 

He doesn’t remember when it first started, doesn’t know when he looked at Brian and didn’t see his nerdy friend, but a man he could potentially be attracted to: he wishes he could have pinpointed the first flutter in his heart, so he could have stopped it before it was too late. 

But he doesn’t. He remembers the first time he thought Brian was attractive, but not when he himself felt the pull of this attraction. 

 _It was a few weeks after he got into the band, and the three of them where rehearsing a couple of songs._    
_Brian was lost in a solo, which, he came to understand, was a fixation of his. Every song had to have a guitar solo._  

 _Roger, for lack of better things to do, was looking at him, at his hands flying over the guitar, and he unexpectedly thought that Brian’s hands were beautiful, looked to strong and big with those long, talented fingers._  

 _He wondered what else they were good at._  

At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it, convinced himself that he was only thinking about how much their eventual fans would go crazy for Brian. 

On hindsight, he probably should have known better, since now he could barely look at those hands without feeling himself burn, every time Brian touched him his brain turned into mush, Brian’s solos etched themselves into his mind, to torment him when he was trying to relieve himself in the shower. 

As much as he tried to reckon other moments like that, there hadn’t been any: his feelings had grown in the dark, hidden even from himself, readying themselves to hit when he least expected. 

 _It was a cold winter day, and they had recently com_ _e back from Christmas break: he didn’t have the money to go home, and didn’t want to ask his parents for it, so he had stayed in the tiny London apartment he shared with Fred, his co-worker and best friend._  

 _Both Brian and Tim had gone home, and even Freddie had been persuaded by his mother to join the family for the festivities._    
_So Roger had spent Christmas alone, in a dark and freezing flat, for he didn’t want to waste money on heating and they had literally cut off the power during the holidays, those monsters._  

 _It had rained for two weeks straight and he had gotten a cold, barely leaving his bed for days._    
_To say he was glad to see his friends again was an understatement._  

_When Freddie had returned, bearing gifts in form of homemade goods and the money to pay the power bill, he was still sick, and his friend had immediately called reinforcements to help him take care of Roger, who was infamous for the little care he took of himself when he didn’t feel good._

_After fussing like a mother hen for hours, he had left to get some cough syrup, and Roger had tried to go back to sleep despite the pain in his lungs, when he felt a knock on the bedroom door._  

 _Brian had come in, a soft smile in his face and holding a container which wafted a delicious smell, that went straight to his deprived stomach._    
_“Hey, Fred told me you’re sick?”_  

 _He couldn’t speak, so he nodded, blaming it on his flu._  

 _“I brought you a bit of soup? Thought you might’ve not been eating much” he had the same adorable smile on his face, and Roger felt himself returning it._  

 _“My saviour” he rasped_ _;_ _voice rough with disuse. He felt himself flush, and made grabby hands towards the Tupperware._  

 _Brian sat on the side of the bed, and manhandled him in a sitting position, and Roger was suddenly aware of the fact that he hadn’t showered in weeks._  

 _“Don’t touch me, I smell” he mumbled, trying to get away from those warm, strong arms._  

 _“I promise you_ _;_ _you smell of roses” he reassured him, with a soft chuckle._  

 _At that moment, for the first time in weeks, the sun had peeked through, lighting the room in pale, pastel colours._  

 _Roger felt his breath catch, and he knew that he couldn’t blame this on being sick._  

 _He was in love._  

With a soft sigh, he leaned his head on his bannister, and took a deep breath, taking in the sweet honey-like smell of the pink rhododendron tree his mother had planted in the backyard when he was a kid. 

He felt a soft pang on his heart: during the last year of high school, he couldn’t wait to move to university, and thought he would never miss a home that, at the time, felt like a cage.   
But ever since he was in London, he found himself nostalgically thinking about the smell of home, the harmony of his family’s voices, the colours of the house, and the city. 

He didn’t tell anyone about his homesickness, wasn’t used to openly share his feelings with his friends, despite how much he loved them, and nobody suspected him to have a worry in the world.   
Nobody except Brian, who seemed to have gotten into his mind, who knew him like no one else, who effortlessly could tell what he was feeling at all times. 

The way he anticipated his needs was one of the things who made him fall in love with him, but now he was scared of it, feared one day the guitarist would look at him in the eyes and know exactly what he felt for him. 

 _“Rog?”_  

 _An_ _headful of curls peeked through his bedroom door, Brian’s dark eyes barely visible under it._    
_They had grown so much in the past year or so, he had no idea what to do with them._  

 _Roger raised his head from the book he had spent the whole morning bent over, and smiled at his friend, motioning him in._  

 _“Am I bothering you?”_    
_Sweet Brian, always so considerate, he almost made Roger want to cry._  

_“No, I needed a break anyway” he watched as the other man sat on his bed, watching him with a tentative, uncertain look on his face._

_“What’s the matter, Rog?”_  

 _He thought his heart might stop._  

 _“Nothing, what do you mean?”_  

 _“Well you’ve been kind of distant lately” he made a vague gesture with his hand. “I don’t think you’ve ever spent so much time holed up in here studying” he said, laughing softly._  

 _Roger cursed that smart, cunning brain of his, and himself for ever giving him spare keys to his flat. Hadn’t he done_ _that,_ _he could have pretended he wasn’t home._  

_“I have a big exam coming up” he crossed his arms, pretending to be offended by the comment, “I do study, you know”._

_Brian got up, taking a step forward, hands raised in a conciliatory gesture._  

 _“That’s not what I meant at all. I’m just saying, it looks like something’s been bothering you”._  

 _Roger mellowed, a light blush covering his cheeks. He knew Brian was only concerned about him, but he needed to find a way to stop him from thinking about it further._  

 _“I just miss my family, that’s all. You know I haven’t been able to go home for Christmas, and I was hoping to go visit them for a couple of days after this exam”_  

 _It wasn’t a lie, after all._  

 _He saw Brian’s face soften, an understanding smile taking the place of that worried frown, and he knew that he had saved himself from disaster._  

He had only told him as a distraction, but he found himself glad he did.   
Brian had hugged him, and assured him that he could talk to him about anything, a Roger had prayed God that he couldn’t feel his racing heart. 

After that, they had gone out to dinner, and talked about home, and their childhoods. Roger had had an hard time reminding himself that it wasn’t a date. 

It had only been two weeks ago, the memory was so fresh Roger had still to analyse in detail every bit of their conversation, all the looks on Brian’s face.  

He had to pull himself together, as in less than a week he had to go back to London, Smile having a list of gigs throughout most of the summer, and that meant rehearsals and shows and parties, all by Brian’s side, without even the excuse of university to skip a couple of social events, and take a break from it all. 

He looked up at the deep blue sky again, took in the smell and sounds of the summer, and let it all calm him down.   
He focused on the beauty of it all, and for a moment he felt small, in a comforting way. Nature surrounded him and made him feel safe like Brian’s arms around him, clearing his mind of all the distressing thoughts that seemed to haunt him. 

He soon felt the pull of sleep, and laid down in his bed, closing his eyes. 

In his dreams, he kissed Brian under the stars. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> So, this is my first work in the fandom, and I really need your opinions about it.  
> I don't write much, but this pairing kept haunting me until I gave in.
> 
> It's all basically introspection, as you might have noticed, so I don't really know if I should write more of this? I'll put it as incomplete but I don't know if I'm gonna add anything else. Tell me what you think I should do, any advice is deeply appreciated!


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